Jan. 26. 19C5 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



71 



of paralysis. There is where we have to take it up anotlicr 

 year and make a thorough investigation to see the cause of it. 

 He could only make one single suggestion, and that is a mere 

 idea that entered his head, that possibly between pear-blisht 

 and this disease there is some connection, because pear-blight 

 was abundant about this apiary that was so largely affected. 

 If any one is situated to make observations- of that I shall 

 be glad to report on it another year. 



I.Ir. Hart — I would say our fruit-men do their spraying 

 in February and the early part of March, and this paralysis 

 comes on between August :!0 and September 10. We have 

 what has been spoken of by Mr. France, and also in addition 

 to that when the bees die they seem to be full of sour watery 

 stuff. 



A Member — I have had some trouble in Colorado, and 

 Prof. Benton's suggestion that it might be pear-blight in 

 connection with paralysis reminds me that the worst trouble 

 I had was with bees located in a pear orchard which was 

 badly affected with blight. I hadn't thought of connecting 

 the two diseases, but perhaps that had something to do with 

 it. It occurs with me usually about the first of May and 

 continues until October. Mr. France's description of the 

 disease is identical with my experience. I have eradicated it 

 in some few cases by changing the queens, but I don't think 

 it is a reliable remedy. 



Mr. France — In reply to Mr. Benton, I also looked after 

 the spraying conditions north of me. Now in my own locality 

 I had four pear-trees and that is all I know of, within several 

 miles of my apiary, and there were none near my out-apiaries, 

 and they were fully as bad as the others. About twenty miles 

 almost directly west of this yard in Wisconsin where Mr. 

 Rankin went, it was fully as bad. and there are no pear- 

 trees in that vicinity. I question if we dare attribute it to 

 that. I don't believe spraying has anything to do with it. 



Mr. Root — Mr. France describes exactly what I have seen 

 in various parts of the country, and what I have seen in our 

 own locality, but usually after the honey-flow. I have seen 

 one other peculiar symptom accompanied with it, that was 

 that the bees would be tugging at their abdomens with their 

 hind legs, and after struggling for some time they would 

 separate the abdomen from the rest of the body, and they 

 would be running around in that way. I have seen them 

 come down in the air, head over heels, in that way, and 

 apparently had made the separation in the air. I have seen 

 the separation take place on the sidewalk, and I have watched 

 them actually dismember themselves, apparently as if in a 

 good deal of pain. I sent a few specimens to Mr. Benton, 

 and if I remember rightly. Prof. Wiley found a slight trace 

 of poison. Whether they had gathered anything that poisoned 

 them or not I cannot say. 



Mr. Poppleton — Mr. Laws was asking about the prev- 

 alence of the disease. You cannot pick up a single volume 

 of any of our bee-papers but what you will find reference 

 to it. I get letters from different States in the Union asking 

 about it. Mr. Ford lost his entire apiary, and another gentle- 

 man down in Florida almost went out of business. It is 

 scattered universally. The form I speak of is exactly iden- 

 tical with what I had in Iowa. I think Mr. Benton tells me 

 they call it the ''May disease" in Europe, because it is more 

 prevalent then. It is spoken of in the Australian journals. 

 It cost me 10,000 pounds of honey one year ; it costs me a 

 little something every year: it is costing now a great deal. 

 It is exceedingly erratic in its operations. You cannot tell 

 anything about it; it seems to respond to one kind of thing 

 at one time and to another at some other time. My own 

 impression is that one of the worst troubles is through the 

 queen, and I have entirely refrained from ordering a queen 

 from outside of my apiaries, because of the danger of bring- 

 ing it in. Not with the queens themselves, but their prog- 

 eny. The more experience we have with it the more we 

 know we don't know about it. 



Mr. Krebs — I have talked with a very prominent bee- 

 keeper of Texas on the subject of paralysis, and he told me 

 he could not figure it out in any sense, and all he did for it 

 was simply to wait until the honey-flow commeticed. It is a 

 spring disease, and when the honey-flow comes it passes off. 

 It will come back the next spring in some cases and in others 

 it does not. 



H. Stewart — There arc many here vitally interested in 

 the subject of foul brood, and in a private interview with 

 Mr. C. Stewart, of New York, he has outlined a treatment 

 that has not been touched upon at all and if we ask him he 

 would take the floor and describe his treatment. It is a 

 treatment to be carried on this fall. 



Mr. WhitcoiTib — Among swine-breeders there arc nbout 

 twenty or thirtv different kinds of diseases which wo at- 



tribute to cholera. Among cattle we know they go out and 

 get something that kills them. We attribute all these dis- 

 eases that bees are heir to, to bcc-paralysis which we do not 

 attribute to foul brood. Now we need to understand our- 

 selves and define what it is. I have had two cases. In the 

 first case I superseded the queen, and she built up the finest 

 colony I eversaw. The next had shown symptoms of coball- 

 ic poison, and I went over to a friend and found he had 

 left some honey in the cellar, and the flies were there and 

 he had given them fly-poison. Sometimes they bring in poison 

 from the fields. We don't know anything about it. 



Mr. Poppleton — The idea that it comes on just before 

 the honey harvest, and goes away just as soon as it is over, 

 is only partly true. There is always more of it just before 

 the honey harvest ; when the honey-flow fairly commences 

 it lessens, but some will carry it right straight through the 

 honey harvest. There is not any one rule to follow at all. 

 There is one disease that is known universally as bee-paraly- 

 sis. 



C. Stewart — Perhaps in giving that treatment I ought to- 

 say sometimes the question is brought up about changing the 

 hives. We treat those bees right in the same hive, providing 

 you don't leave any comb or honey there. Some of 

 our people have gathered up the refuse from a hive badly 

 affected with black brood and sent it to our bacteriologist at 

 Cornell University, and he was unable to obtain a culture 

 from it, showing there were no living germs after it reached 

 hiin. With reference to the treatment I was asked to give.- 

 it is, at the end of the honey season when all brood-rearing 

 has ceased — depending on where you are located — when there 

 is no brood in the hive you can take all the combs from the 

 diseased hive and give them a clean set of combs from some 

 healthy hive, and when the spring comes you will find that 

 the disease has disappeared, there being no brood there to 

 continue the disease, and there being no honey except what 

 little they take in their honey-sacs with them, and that being 

 consumed before the brood is reared again you will find the 

 colony in nice shape. 



Mr. Poppleton — The most important point in my entire 

 paper not one has touched on. and that is the method of 

 curmg bee-paralysis by transferring the brood and building 

 up another healthy colony. I think that will be far more 

 satisfactory. It has the advantage of ridding the apiary from 

 all signs of the disease. 



Pres. Harris — It is almost utterly impossible for me at 

 this time to name a committee of two from each State in- 

 terested in bee-culture, but through the bee-papers, it may 

 be well at no distant date to take this up and correspond 

 with both the president, and the others and make suggestions 

 and I will then forward the committee to the Manager and 

 he will iiotify these people who have been appointed, so that 

 they will be ready to do their duty. 



Mr. Haines — I would like to have some of the experts 

 explain the treatment of pickled brood. 



C. Stewart — I am not so well posted on that as I am on 

 black brood. We have a disease near Syracuse that differs 

 a little from the old-time pickled brood that was pickled in 

 its own juice. This seems to have dried down, and when 

 the proper time comes for the larvas to be capped over it 

 simply straightens out in the cell and the head turns black, 

 and to distinguish it we call it "neglected brood," because we- 

 find a great deal of it in the time of a droutli. when honey is 

 coming in very slowly. We find apiaries badly depleted to a 

 great extent : that is the most trouble we have had with 

 pickled brood in New York State. 



Mr. Davis — I think pickled brood troubles only black- 

 German bees. I have been troubled somewhat with it. I 

 don't think it is seriolis at all. It is like the bee-moth. By 

 introducing the Italian bees it will disappear almost en- 

 tirely. 



Mr. Haines — I have to differ from the gentleman on that. 

 I have as good an Italian queen as you would wish to see; 

 there are two colonies that swarmed from it last year and 

 they are both affected with it. Mr. France examined some 

 yesterday from St. Clair Count}', and pronounced it pickled 

 brood, and he says it will dwindle down imtil there is no 

 brood at all. That is my experience. I don't say we have 

 much foul brood, but we are just as bad off with pickled 

 brood. 



No. 150 — I was badly scared over this business this year, 

 myself. I found it in one of my apiaries and in very bad 

 shape; found it had depleted two-thirds of the combs in the 

 hive ; the colony would be affected all over and in perhaps- 

 a very bad shape, two-thirds of it would be entirely destroyed. 

 I wrote to the President of our National .'\ssociation and he 

 told me that they needed protection and feed. I went to 



